The ball popped straight up in the air. Having clearly lost track of it, the Aussie veteran took a couple of steps down the wicket. When the ball returned to earth, it was too late for her to get back in her crease, and she was run out by ‘keeper Izzy Gaze.

“One of the few times in her career she looked all at sea, lost, didn’t know where the ball was, and was stranded mid-wicket,” commentator Mel Jones said on Fox Sports.

Earlier, the Aussies never really got going, bowled out for 142 in the final over.

Opener Alyssa Healy top scored with 38. She was one of only four Southern Stars to make double figures, including Beth Mooney, playing in her 100th T20I, who made 10.

The Aussies were still 3-91 when Perry was out, but that only brought game one player of the match Phoebe Litchfield to the crease.

She was given a life on one when Fran Jonas dropped a relatively straightforward catch at backward square, but she wasn’t able to make them pay, bowled for eight by Brooke Halliday.

Halliday and Kerr then bowled beautifully in tandem for the next several overs as the Aussies lost 7-28 and fell in a heap.

In reply, White Ferns openers Suzie Bates and Georgia Plimmer tried to take it to the Aussies. They put on 37 for the first wicket before Plimmer tried to sweep Georgia Wareham fine but succeeded only in guiding a bottom edge onto her leg stump.

Amelia Kerr was next to fall, trapped in front by Ashleigh Gardner, who returned to the team having missed the opener on Friday after a warm-up head clash with Wareham.

Litchfield put herself back in the game when she took a screamer of a catch at cover to remove Bates for a run-a-ball 34.

Litchfield aside, the Aussies were sloppy on the field. Several catches were grassed, and a couple of misfields gave away free runs, and then Alyssa Healy missed a potential run out in the 19th over.

But the bowling was otherwise tight, and New Zealand could only muster 113 in return.